Memories, Traditions, and Henrik Lundqvist

I’ll have to think about my “traditions” but I like where u went with your post. We are the Rangers. We will be here forever. I can’t imagine not watching the Rangers, I love everything about them win or lose. I have a Ranger tattoo in my future I can tell u that much.

As I’m sure with all of us, we could totally relate with some of your experiences or they triggered different ones for us. Just reading erik81686’s comment above about not being able to “imagine not watching the Rangers”. . .

I recently realized that since the days the Rangers exclusively were televised on MSG cable, I have NEVER been able to watch the Rangers on TV on a regular basis. I remember watching them on channel 9 once in a while (along with Islander games) back in the 70s and early 80s (?) and that was it. When they went to cable we couldn’t get it (we lived too far out in the country). I think a full 80% of my Rangers game experience from say 1984 to today has been listening to them on the radio. (Thankfully I travelled to my sister’s place (40 minute drive) to watch the ‘94 cup run). I’m also thankful for live streaming now as this is the only way I can currently watch games. Because of the above personal history, my all-time favorite Ranger moment is (and probably always will be): “Matteau! Matteau! Matteau!” I was somehow able to pick up that broadcast from the upper peninsula of Michigan on a walkman radio!

Awesome post… I could write a whole book of wacky stuff from about three decades of watching (and loving) this team – but I’ll just top-line it. First Ranger favorite (I was 4) was Espo – though my dad hated the guy. Can never forget the infamous Barry Beck trade that sent my dad’s favorite (Pat Hickey) to the Rockies. He would literally sit around for weeks after, cursing Beck under his breath, regardless of if there was a game on. I also remember the game where Dave Maloney went to slam his stick down on the ice after we got scored on (this was his habit) but accidentally hit the back of JD’s calf and caused an injury. The next day I got teary about JD getting hurt (I think I was 5 or 6) and my dad called me a pussy for crying and then launched into a tirade about Maloney being the “biggest schmuck on the team”… I remember the Rockies coming to NJ to become the Devils – and the local paper running a naming contest to determine what they would be called. One of the options was the NJ Meadowlanders… WTF? I remember Espo – once my favorite player – quickly become the worst GM ever, and then coach (he wore a tux on NY Eve behind the bench – looked like a goomba idiot). I remember being at MSG about 10 years ago watching John Amorante sing the anthem at a game and some guy a few rows back randomly yells “NO FACIAL HAIR” right in mid-song (hilarious moment – you can’t make this stuff up). And I’ll skip the rest to close with two things. First, every great memory I have as a child (and of my dad and brother) somehow involves the Rangers. Two, I recently sat next to Neil Smith on a flight to Orlando (totally didn’t recognize him until we started talking hockey and he told me he was Neil Smith) and got the uncensored inside scoop on the 94 Cup run… probably the highlight of my experience as a Rangers fan — well, at least after all that great stuff with my dad and bro.

Bottom line… we bleed Blue in my family – probably not unlike any of us here on Banter. Kudos to DC Ranger for reminding us what it really means to be a fan.

He had a Pierre Larouche poster in his room and I really looked up to him so it was no surprise that his passion for hockey and the Rangers rubbed off on me.

What quickly followed was an obsession that (obviously) has not worn off. I’m 35 now and I still jump around the room like an adolescent when the Rangers score a big goal.

Some top memories:

I watched game 5 of the Stanley Cup finals in 1994 with my dad and a bunch of friends, in our living room on the big t.v. After getting snake bit with the bad calls and losing that silly ass game, when game 7 rolled around I decided: no friends, no family, no big t.v. I sat in my bedroom on the small t.v. I had where I watched every game every year, alone, clutching the playoff towel I got for attending game 1 or 2 vs. Washington. I can’t recall at the moment. (It figures the only 1994 playoff game I got to go to was in the least talked about, least interesting series of the whole run, but I got to see a Brian Leetch hat trick and a Joey Kocur scrap).

Anyway I sat there and grit my teeth through that third period with that towel, sitting Indian style on a chair three feet from the screen like a goddamn maniac.

When they won I flew around my house in ecstasy. I remember the tears finally came when Jay Wells picked up the Cup. Remember his face and his primal yell of absolute triumph? Also when Mark put the Cup over the boards for the fans to touch – that gives me chills to this day.

If any of you lived in Westchester County New York back then, like I did, you’ll recall there was a thunderstorm shortly after the win. Nevertheless my friends and I hooked up and ran through the dark suburban streets with our jerseys on and a homemade banner we made. People flashed their lights and blew their horns. I remember this one guy actually got out of his car and we all hugged! Total f**kin stranger. Didn’t matter. Victory was ours.

Another memory during that run:

You know how the Black Aces were wearing their outfits inside out for Overtime, and Matteau saw them and got a kick out of it then told them he was going to get the goal? I think this was the first one he scored, before the immortal Game 7 winner. Well, I took that a little further and began wearing my underwear (tighty whities!!!!) on the outside of my pants – even in public. A couple of nights my psychosis for the New York Rangers had me in a store with my drawers on the outside of my pants. Only sports can reduce the American male to the murky depths of lunacy. lol…..

Great write up, and thanks for allowing me to dislodge some of these memories and share them with y’all.

Cheers and Go Rangers.

I started following the Rangers in 91’, when Amonte, Turcotte, Graves, and Richter were just a bunch of Kids on the Rangers playing their hearts out and having fun. I started watching through the influence of my 2 friends, who were brothers. We would play street hockey everyday after school and watch the Rangers every other night after dinner. I still have VHS tapes with highlights from those early Rangers years, as I would record games back then. I remember driving my parents crazy by always hogging their t.v. in order to watch the games, and as they were not hockey fans.

I was also a junior volunteer fireman in 94’, the greatest sports year of my life. As the rangers stormed their way into the Conference Finals, I would rally everyone at the firehouse to watch the games. The Captain of the firehouse at the time, was not a hockey fan, and rarely watched any games. After we had watched Game 6 in the member’s room of the firehouse, he walked over to me and said, “That was incredible. These guys are playing their hearts out. Is hockey always like this?” I just laughed and responded by saying, “it is for me”. Little did he know he would be watching some of the greatest moments in the history of the sport.

It was great being 14, being crazy about the sport, and watching my favorite team win the cup. Thanks to Mess, and thanks to my friends for introducing me to the coolest game on earth.

mine came in 1979, during game three of the finals against montreal

my father was a mailman and also did some side work selling pot at the post office (we lived in borough park at the time and our hasidic neighbors didn’t know what those big plants were)….he eventually moved up and sold….other stuff, which he got from a guy named gene who lived in sheepshead in this basement apartment with beaded curtains, shag carpets, all the 70s decorative trimmings

anyway, my father (for reasons unknown) carted my four year old ass to this guy’s house for a pickup, and because the guy was a huge ranger fan he had the game on, and my father, always one to jump on a bandwagon, got so involved in the game that he lost track of time and by the time we got home my mother was freaking out thinking he’d been arrested and i had been taken by the cops (note: neither of my parents actually DID drugs); what i remember most was cheering whenever gene & my father cheered, and yelling stupid things whenever they got pissed at a bad penalty/habs goal/whatnot

the one thing that really turned me onto the sport wasn’t a ranger game though; a little less than a year later, when team usa won the gold medal….i was allowed to stay up with my parents to watch the game, and when it was over they went apeshit, screaming and crying tears of joy, and again, i just followed what they were doing since i didn’t really know what was happening

later that year i was in a store with my mother and saw one of those old topps sticker books for the nhl and begged for it, and she obliged, and that was when i really took to it, drawing the team logos and memorizing all the team names (being a big baseball fan as a kid, i had no idea what an edmonton oiler or winnipeg jet was, and that forced me to hit the world almanac to actually find out where these strange places were); after a few months i could name all the teams and the divisions they played in

it was my uncle, in the end, who pushed me toward the rangers; he was a season ticket holder in the 70s and used to mock carol vadnais (hit ’em with your purse!) and he hated the flyers and bruins, but loved bobby orr; he bought me my first ranger jersey in ’81 (a variation of the 70s pajama one), gave me one of his old hockey sticks to get me started, and explained to me that the islanders, flyers, and bruins were all worthy of the death penalty, but orr was the greatest player ever

to this day, all of that has stuck; i agree about bobby orr and own his jersey, and i hate the flyers and islanders….the bruins much less so…

my father, not wanting to be left out, bought me a hockey stick the next christmas….of course, being the bandwagonner he was, he decided i should have a bryan trottier signature model, who, by that point, was on my very young hit list, and it’s the only gift i’ve ever received that caused me to be unhappy

“how can you not like it? bryan trottier has won two straight stanley cups and is a great player!!!”

“but i like barry BECK, dad!! i HATE the islanders!!!!”

“you can’t hate the islanders, you have to respect how good they are—”

“I HATE THE ISLANDERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

worst….christmas…..ever….

so like all the old farts on here who remember far enough back, i grew up in the shadow of those fuckers from long island’s dynasty, the flyers, dave brown (eat shit and die), boxcar hospodar getting his face broken by gillies, trader phil, a first round pick for michel bergeron, patrick roy and his posts, more trader phil, the (almost) swan song of guy lafleur….oh the memories this ridiculously star-crossed franchise has given me